By allowing limited reunions with Koreans divided by the country’s separation in 1945, North Korea exploits human suffering to inflict more punishment
The bait of reunions of members of families divided by the Korean war has got to be about the most cynical ploy devised by the North Koreans to exploit human suffering for no reason other than to inflict cruel punishment on defenceless people.
We all have heard many times why the North Koreans built up their nuclear strength. For “self-defence,” they say, to the applause of pro-northers and other useful idiots who think, sure, devices for wiping out millions are just the thing to ward off an enemy attack.
We also know the stock answer for why the North Koreans have imprisoned millions over the years in a vast gulag system where they slave away unto death by starvation, disease, torture or execution. It’s all fabrication, says the North Korean propaganda machine. “Prove it,” echoes the pro-north chorus.
OK, but can anyone come up with any rationale for why North Korea has countenanced only 21 reunions of divided families since South Korea’s then-president Kim Dae-jung and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il in a joint declaration of June 15,2000, agreed “to promptly resolve humanitarian issues such as exchange of visits by separated family members and relatives”.
I vividly remember the first such reunion. It was in the COEX Convention Hall in Seoul on August 15,2000,55th anniversary of the Japanese surrender and the division of the Korean peninsula. Journalists could wander freely as 100 North Korean family members embraced dozens of relatives who had fled the North in the early days of the Korean war.
